Interest Aggregation or the Combining of Demands

1. Interest Aggregation or the Combining of Demands

2. Interest Aggregation: A Process Function

3. Interest Aggregation • The activity in which the political demands (articulated interests) of individuals and groups are combined into policy programs. • Interest Aggregation is backed by resources • How interests are aggregated is a key feature of the political process. • In a democratic system, two or more parties compete to gain support for their alternative policy programs. • In an authoritarian system, a single party or institution may try to mobilize citizens’ support for its policies. • Covert and controlled • Process is top-down rather than bottom-up

4. Interest Aggregation – Most common form in contemporary political systems • Political Parties • The distinctive and defining goal of a political party - its mobilization of support for policies and candidates - is especially related to interest aggregation.

5. Personal Interest Aggregation • Patron-Client Networks • System in which a central officeholder, authority figure, or group provides benefits (patronage) to supporters in exchange for their loyalty • Defining principle of feudalism • Primitive structure out of which larger and more complicated and modern political structures are composed

6. PERSONAL INTEREST AGGREGATION • Static – difficult to mobilize for change • Structure runs through the political processes of countries such as the Philippines, Japan, and India.

8. Institutional Interest Aggregation • Modern society and interest aggregation • Citizens aware of larger collective interests; have resources and skills to work for them • Personal networks tend to be regulated, limited, and incorporated within broader organizations. • Institutional Groups • Bureaucratic agencies and military groups are institutional groups that can be important interest aggregators. • Government agencies may even be “captured” by interest groups and used to support their demands.

9. Competitive Party Systems and Interest Aggregation • In most contemporary political systems, parties are the primary structures of interest aggregation. • Political parties are groups or organizations that seek to place candidates in office under their label. • Party system • Competitive party system • Authoritarian party system

10. Competitive Party Systems and Interest Aggregation • History and development of parties • Internally created parties • Externally created parties • Stable party families: Social Democrats, Conservatives, Christian Democrats, Nationalists, Liberals, etc. • The party systems of most democratic countries reflect a mix of these various party families. • No two party systems are exactly alike. • Differences emerge due to various factors, including electoral systems.

12. Electoral Systems: Rules of the Game • Rules by which elections are conducted • Determine who can vote, how people vote, and how the votes get counted • Single-member district plurality (SMDP) election rule • First past the post • A variation on this is the majority runoff system (or double ballot) • Proportional representation • Nominations • Primary elections • In most countries with SMD elections, party officials select the candidates. • In proportional representation elections, the party draws up a list of candidates. • Closed-list PR systems • Open-list system

14. Patterns of Electoral Competition • Duverger’s law • Mechanical effect • Psychological effect • Strategic voting • Anthony Downs • Media voter result: centrist pull or “convergence” • Effective number of parties

15. Competitive Parties in Government • Ability to implement policies is determined by the nature of the electoral outcome • Winning control of legislature and executive • Question of level of support: system produces majority outcome without a majority of voter support • Coalition governments • The aggregation of interests at the executive rather than electoral can have both costs and benefits. • Minority interests

16. Cooperation and Conflict in Competitive Party Systems • Majoritarian two party systems • Either dominated by just two parties (U.S), or they have two dominant parties and election laws that usually create legislative majorities for one of them, as a Britain. • Majority-coalition systems • Often establish pre-electoral coalitions so that voters know which parties will attempt to work together to form government • Multi-party systems • Have election laws and party systems that virtually ensure that no single party wins a legislative majority and no tradition of pre-lection coalitions

17. Cooperation and Conflict in Competitive Party Systems • Consensual party system • The parties commanding most of the legislative seats are not too far apart on policies and have a reasonable amount of trust in each other and in the political system. • Conflictual party system • The legislative seats are far apart on policies (e.g: Communists & Christian Democrats) and have little trust in each other and one usually advocates dramatic changes in the existing political system • Some party systems have both consensual and conflictual features. • Consociational (accommodative)

18. Authoritarian Party Systems • Can also aggregate interests • Aggregation takes place within the party or in interactions with groups. • Sham elections: no real opportunity for citizens to shape aggregation by choosing between party alternatives • Exclusive governing party • Inclusive governing party • Authoritarian corporatist system • Electoral authoritarianism

19. The Military and Interest Aggregation • Some interest aggregations in all military institutions • Major limitation of the military in interest aggregation for the entire polity is that its internal structures are not designed for such broadly inclusive interest aggregation. • Good at some things, but not others • Brazil – military governed between 1964 and 1985

20. Trends in Interest Aggregation • Democratic trend in the world has gained momentum since the end of the 1980s. • In 1978 fewer than one-third of the world’s almost 200 independent countries were classified as free. • These regimes (free) tended to have competitive party systems as their predominant interest aggregation. They were dominant in Western Europe and North America. • Military dominated regimes accounted for a third or more countries in Africa and Latin America (not free). • Single party systems were the main form in Eastern Europe and relatively common in Africa and Asia and accounted for the remaining unfree countries.

21. Trends in Interest Aggregation • Trend toward democracy? • Eastern Europe (began in 1989) • Declining acceptance of authoritarian regimes. • Important authoritarian party systems with exclusive governing parties are still around: China and Cuba • Venezuela has become authoritarian over past five years • Could populist authoritarian party systems be a trend? • Most of the unfree states are in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.

23. Significance of Interest Aggregation • How interests are aggregated is an important determinant of what a country’s government does for and to its citizens. • In democratic countries, competitive party systems narrow down and combine policy preferences. • In noncompetitive party systems, military governments, and monarchies, aggregation works differently, but with the similar effect of narrowing policy options. • Interest aggregation can alter the polarization that the political culture projects into policymaking. • Aggregation ultimately affects the government’s adaptability and stability. • Authoritarian regimes • Free and fair electoral competition; democracy